LotR --- Appendix D -- The Calendars

[Estelyn Telcontar]

The translator conceit comes through very strongly in this appendix! It begins with a table showing the Shire Calendar, which remains the same each year, then goes into detailed explanations on the subject, which is said to be of interest to Hobbits. Obviously, it was of great interest to Tolkien himself, since he explains various points at length.

The passage on Elven time reckoning brings up a matter which has been much discussed - the yén, or Elven 'year'. It's interesting that the Elves use a mathematical system based on sixes and twelves; you'd think that a race so logical would have chosen a kind of metric system! I can't help but wonder why the week was "for ritual rather than practical purposes" - was every day the same for Elves? One observation - the Elven week of six days has no relationship whatsoever to the Biblical week, which includes a day of rest after six days of creation. Apparently there was no hallowed day for them?

Tolkien's love for names lead him to invent many different ones for days, months, and seasons - Quenya and Sindarin, to begin with. Interesting is also the fact that he wrote of the Elven day as beginning and ending at sunset.

He also goes to the trouble of finding ways to deal with the astronomical adjustments. However, he conveniently refers to the translator conceit again when unable (or unwilling) to explain a detail - "uncertain", "unknown", "no record".

Next we read of the Númenorean changes, most importantly a seven-day week and a day beginning and ending at sunrise. Again, Tolkien goes into great detail on explaining leap years, etc.

Finally we reach the main object of all that background information - the Shire Reckoning. Though it is based on the Mannish calendar, changes and differences are noted, with even Bree having some of its own idiosyncracies. The 30-day month, with extra days inserted to adjust to the astronomical year, stays the same as far as weekdays are concerned. This leads to a couple of interesting details - the information that Shire folk didn't bother to write the weekday on their letters, since it was always the same for the date, and the fact that no month began on a Friday, leading to the joke about "Friday the first" as a day that will never come.

The usage of our modern day and month names in the narrative of LotR is explained as translation.

Another interesting detail is mentioned - "Yellowskin", the Year-book of Tuckborough. The weekday names listed there start sounding very familiar to us; was Tolkien building a bridge to our own times? The appendix closes with some facts and speculations on holidays in the Shire.

I must confess, this is the first time I have read this section thoroughly, as I'm not deeply interested in the Shire Calendar. When did you first read it and what importance does it have to you? Which details do you find most interesting?


PS - For those who haven't looked at the Barrow-Downs main page for awhile, there is one "practical" usage of the Shire Calendar there: The Barrow-Wight has 'Today's Date in the Shire' at the top right of the page. It's 30 Foreyule today.

[davem]

This Appendix contains one of the two ‘essential’ parts of the Appendices for an understanding of the story, according to Tolkien: The Shire Calendar. The other one was The Tale of Aragorn & Arwen.

The ‘Translator Conceit’ takes on a new dimension here: not only has Tolkien converted the Shire calendar into our modern one in the text, he has also translated the original Hobbit names of months into variations of Old English. As Hammond & Scull point out in LotR: A Reader’s Companion:

The names of the months in the Shire Calendar are adaptations, or modernisations, of names in Old English:
Afteryule from aefter Geola ‘after winter solstice’.
Solmath from Solmonad, apparently ‘’mud-month’ (from sol ‘mud’....

Winterfilth from Winterfylled ‘winterfullness’...etc

So, we have a translation of the original Hobbit names for the months into Old English & the Calendar then converted into our own familiar one. It seems Tolkien’s intention was to tie the Hobbits in even more closely to the English people.

What he has done with the names of the weekdays is also interesting, as it seems to show some kind of ‘natural religion’ - days are dedicated to objects found in nature, rather than to Gods (as with ourselves: Sunday to the Sun (God), Monday to the Moon (Goddess), Tuesday to the God Tiw, Wednesday to Woden, Thursday to Thor, Friday to Freya/Frigg, Saturday to Surtur(?) ),

so we have

Sterrendei = Stars, Sunnendei - Sun, Monendei = Moon, Trewsdei = Tree, Hevensdei = Sky, Meresdei = Sea, Hihdei - High/lofty/sublime

As Tolkien states, the Hobbits seem to have taken over the Elvish attributions of the days without taking over the meaning or relevance - much as we do ourselves, carrying over the Pagan names for the days without (in most cases) knowing why. Or, as another example, how many people are currently continuing another ancient tradition (having a decorated tree in the corner of the room) without knowing the reason?

We find another example of this kind of preservation without knowing the reason:

There is no record of the Shire-folk commemorating either March 25 or September 22; but in the Westfarthing, especially in the country round Hobbiton Hill, there grew up a custom of making holiday and dancing in the Party Field, when weather permitted, on April 6. Some said that it was old Sam Gardner's birthday, some that it was the day on which the Golden Tree first flowered in 1420, and some that it was the Elves' New Year. In the Buckland the Horn of the Mark was blown at sundown every November 2 and bonfires and feastings followed.

Which is contrast to Gondor:

But in honour of Frodo Yavannie 30, which corresponded with former September 22, his birthday, was made a festival, and the leap-year was provided for by doubling this feast, called Cormare or Ringday.

What we seem to see here is Gondor preserving the ‘facts’ while the inhabitants of the Shire create their own stories (of course, the fact that they can invent stories about such events may cause us to question other statements made by them (as in The Tale of Years, for example).

One odd thing is Tolkien’s statement:

In the language of the time of the War of the Ring these had become Sterday, Sunday, Monday, Trewsday, Hevensday (or Hensday), Mersday, Highday.

This is either wrong, or very odd - as if correct it would mean that the ‘language of the time of the War of the Ring’ was Anglo-Saxon!

One observation - the Elven week of six days has no relationship whatsoever to the Biblical week, which includes a day of rest after six days of creation. Apparently there was no hallowed day for them?

Maybe since the Elves were closer to nature and to the Maker(s), they didn't need a separate day devoted to rest and to contemplation? I've wondered about it, too. Perhaps they didn't consider their creative work to be work, like many of us more earthly beings do

I also wondered if the base-six calendar is supposed to echo the ancient Eastern number systems--I know Egyptian and Babylonian and/or Sumerian cultures used the six and three hundred-sixty before other systems...just a thought.

Cloudberry

[Bêthberry]

Having read lately a bit about time, the expanding universe, and thinking about New Year's and our measurements, I came back to consider this part of the Appendices, which I had previously pretty much ignored as not especially relevant to an understanding of the narrative.

Yet I suppose that a way of measuring time is part and parcel of Tolkien's thought, given the role death plays in his Legendarium. The gift of Doom would be no gift, would in fact not be, if there were no sense of time's passing. Yet what was it that 'prompted' the elven year of 144 of our years, or their use of sixes and twelves? Early attempts at time keeping began with observing cycles--of flooding, of the moon, of seasons. What cycle did Tolkien have in mind or was he just playing with numbers because he liked the sound of them? Or was it a matter of 'remember the twelve, to keep them holy"?

On the other hand, much of this strikes me as evidence of Tolkien's mind. He must have been, I think, exceptionally bored with most of his life's daily work, to devote this much attention to creating not one but several versions of calendars for Middle-earth. I wonder if this labour isn't akin to our own endeavours spent here at the Barrow Downs, as evidenced in particular by such features as
Abercrombie of Rohan's Periodic Table of Barrow Downers, or Mark 12_30's creation of the White Tree icon or Alcarillo's leaf icon or, well, The Barrow Wight'screation, The Barrow Downs itself.

Having alot of time on his mind, Tolkien went about various ways of organising if not spending it.

As a postscript, I do like the way in which Sam is described in the last paragraph, in that reference to Sam Gardner in the celebration of the first flowering of the Golden Tree, rather than to his countless years as Reeve of The Shire. It represents how cultures come to create festivities as memories of events in their cultural past. Past time and pass time.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bethberry

On the other hand, much of this strikes me as evidence of Tolkien's mind. He must have been, I think, exceptionally bored with most of his life's daily work, to devote this much attention to creating not one but several versions of calendars for Middle-earth.

Interesting thought! The nice answer is that Tolkien was something of a perfectionist with regard to the world he had created, and so he simply wanted to ensure that everything necessary in a world was 'in place'. He may have begun by pondering how a world without the annual definitions which we have (e.g. Christmas, Passover, Eid etc) might operate, by trying to 'place' events such as Yule and so on in this world.

Or more likely is that the calendars arose as a result of his need to clarify the moon phases mentioned in LotR, which I believe he had at first made mistakes with.

It never fails to amaze me what kind of mind he must have had, able to memorise and make reference to the most minute details, which were all 'facts' of his own making, without the assistance of technology which might help us today. I should love to see some of those original papers, and to what extent he made notes or cross-references on them.

But the whole of his life's work really could be said to have been driven by a peculiar kind of mind - that's the not so nice answer perhaps. His job itself was one which would have been helped by a mind focussed on tiny details - not just the analysis of language and of texts but also analysis of students' papers and arguments. If anything, I think the work which he did lent itself to the creation of his world as it had his mind trained in attention to detail. Though I also think that his private work must have provided him with an element of 'escape' or 'retreat' where he only needed to be true to the world he had created rather than true to the wider world and academic community.